World News Quick Take

Agencies

CHINA

Men catch falling toddler

CCTV has shown security camera footage of a group men catching a two-and-a-half-year-old girl who apparently fell from a fifth-story window on Thursday in Ninghai, Zhejiang Province. The girl escaped with small scrapes on her face. The footage showed the men standing in an alley pointing and looking up the side of a building. They dash into a huddle just as the youngster falls into their arms. CCTV said workers at a delivery company nearby heard the girl crying as her legs dangled out the window. The report quoted her parents as saying they left her home alone while she was sleeping, but she climbed onto the windowsill after she woke up.

ALGERIA

Miss Algeria contest revived

After an absence of 10 years, the Miss Algeria beauty contest was held on Friday in Oran, with 19-year-old science student Rym Amari taking the pageant honors. The competition was suspended in 2003 after the death of Cheradi Hamdad, who launched the beauty contest in 1996 during the country’s civil war and whose son, Faycal Hamdad, has now taken up the mantle. “I have picked up the torch for this year only, because my father died last year of lung cancer,” said the new pageant director, a rights activist and a performer in his own right. The revamped beauty show demonstrates that “the Algerian woman has evolved, Algeria has evolved,” Hamdad said. Amari came out on top from the 20 contestants, aged between 18 and 26, who were carefully selected from the main cities to compete in front of 2,000 spectators in an Oran hotel. While there was a minimum height requirement, there was no posing in swimsuits, with the Miss Algeria hopefuls parading in traditional outfits, sportswear and evening dresses.

AUSTRALIA

Drunk lets child drive him

Police on Friday charged a drunk man after pulling over a car on the Gold Coast to allegedly find a seven-year-old boy driving him home at 3am. A patrol car stopped the vehicle after it went by without its headlights to find the boy at the wheel and the man in the passenger seat. The 41-year-old was charged with dangerous operation of a motor vehicle and being an adult in charge under the influence of alcohol. The boy is now in the care of relatives. Queensland State Minister of Transport Scott Emerson saying he was stunned by the incident. “I shake my head and am shocked by the madness of this,” Emerson told ABC radio.

GUAm

Man held for choking death

A man is being held on US$1 million bail after being charged with murder in the choking death of his girlfriend’s ex-husband. Carl Gargarita appeared in Superior Court this week after allegedly getting involved in a fight outside a Tumon club yesterday morning, the Pacific Daily News reported. Court documents say Gargarita put Anthony Giralao into a chokehold and choked him until he blacked out. An officer at the scene was unable to detect a pulse or breathing from Giralao. Gargarita was initially charged with attempted murder and aggravated assault. The charges were changed after Giralao died. That evening, Gargarita and Giralao’s ex-wife, Irene Giralao, were drinking in a club, according to the documents. Gargarita allegedly told Irene to call her ex-husband and tell him where she was, court documents and police say. Giralao arrived 30 minutes later and the two men started punching each other before Gargarita put Giralao in a chokehold, the complaint said.